In daily practice we encounter many elderly patients who complain of vertigo.
As we often find presumptive type of hyperlipoproteinemia in these patients, hyperlipoproteinemia may be regarded as one of the vertigo factors although the value of serum lipid is not simply proportional to the severity of vertigo.
The author measured the value of malondialdehyde (MDA), which is considered to be more closely related to arteriosclerosis in patients with vertigo and compared the values with those of cholestrol in the same patients.
MDA was measured by the modified TBA method (Naito's method).
A total of 148 patients with vertigo and 15 normal subjects for control were studied.
The results of the study showed that MDA values were more frequently elevated than cholesterol in cases with vertigo, more proportional to the severity of vertigo, and elevated during the attack of vertigo and lowered during remission.
MDA is slightly elevated in Meniere's disease while it is prominently elevated in cerebral vascular insufficiency.
It is also found that when MDA is elevated in a patien with vertigo changes of mean arterial pressure is small while when MDA is normal alteration of mean arterial pressure is greater, in other words, MDA and the changes of the mean arterial pressure are inversely proportional to each other.
From this study the author surmised that MDA is one of the vertigo factors.